Chapter 36
AURELIA
Harrison and I were falling into an easy routine. After he’d plugged my espresso machine in and gave it a spot of pride next to his toaster on the counter in his kitchen, he hooked an arm around my hips and pulled me closer. He grinned and waved his free hand around the space.
“Welcome home, I guess.”
I laughed, my palms falling to his chest and my fingers scrunching the fabric of his shirt. “Wow. That was enthusiastic.”
“I’ll carry you over the threshold once we’re married. It seems a bit redundant to do it twice.” One of his hands moved to my hip and he gripped it tightly. “If we do stay in San Francisco, would you like to move in here?”
“I’ll stay anywhere with you.” Surprisingly, it wasn’t even a line, but I saw the teasing light in his eyes and I shook my head.
“It’s true. This place is amazing and I love it.
We can stay here, sell or rent out my apartment, but we can also find a different place.
Somewhere that’s ours. It doesn’t really matter much to me. ”
His gaze softened, his forehead lowering to mine. “Alright, then. We’ll stay here for now since your alien coffeemaker has already taken up residence, and we’ll look into moving once we decide where we’re going to be?”
I pushed up on my toes, smiling against his mouth before I kissed him. “That sounds like a plan, Mr. Westwood.”
Without hesitating, his arms closed around me and his lips slanted over mine, deepening the kiss in a way that made butterflies rear to life in my stomach. I held on to him, stroking his tongue with my own and moving with him when he started walking backward toward his couch.
He lowered me down when we reached it, but when he didn’t follow me, wrenching his mouth away from my own instead, my eyes flew open. I found him standing in front of me, playfulness combining with the heat in his gaze as it held mine.
“Do you know what I’ve been wanting to do since the very first time I had you here, when you were sitting in that exact spot and proposed to me?”
The memory made me smile, but the way he was looking at me sent anticipation coursing hot and heavy through my veins. “Let me guess. You wanted to bend me over the back of the couch?”
“Well, yeah, but only later. Give me a little bit of credit. I’m more creative than just that.”
“You are.” My breath caught in my throat as he lowered into a crouch, his hands moving to one of my feet and slowly sliding down the zipper of my boot. “What are you doing?”
“Taking off your shoes,” he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, which I supposed it was.
“Okay, fine. Follow-up question. Why are you taking off my shoes?”
“To get you naked.” He glanced up at me as the first boot slid free. “Actually, I’m going to get a fire going first, though.”
A corner of his mouth tugged into a grin and he pulled my other boot off before he pushed himself back up to his feet. I noticed the tent behind his fly and my body’s response was immediate, heat pooling between my legs and my nipples stiffening to peaks.
Too slowly, as if he was dragging this out on purpose, he crossed over to the fireplace and lit the fire that had already been packed. After stoking it for a few minutes, he finally turned back to me, where I was already buzzing with that anticipation he’d left behind before he’d gone.
Instead of coming straight back though, he strode across to the main light switch for the room, flipping it and immediately sending us into darkness. Suddenly, the only light came from the fire and the ambient light shining in through the windows.
He’s recreating the scene from that night, I realized, my pulse skittering and then thumping at the thought.
I couldn’t deny that I’d thought about it that night too, however fleetingly. Kissing him. Fooling around with him. Right here on this couch, with the flickering flames as our only witness.
My tongue darted out to wet my lips and he caught it as he came back to me, a soft groan sliding out of him. He got on his knees, and without a word, he reached for the waistband of my jeans and flicked open the button, fingers hooking into it. I lifted my butt so he could pull the fabric free.
He unzipped the short zipper as soon as he had enough access to do it, then pulled my jeans and my panties clean off.
Tossing them aside as if he truly didn’t care about designer labels or some sense of decorum, he reached for my sweater next, rising slightly.
He pulled it off over my head. To his credit, his gaze was locked on mine as he rose up again, this time to unhook my bra.
I was completely naked in front of him, but for a moment, he didn’t move toward me. He sat back on his knees and admired me instead, his lips legitimately parting as his jaw grew slack on his next inhale.
“Fuck, you’re stunning,” he murmured breathlessly, his gaze leaving mine to rake across my body. I felt the intensity of his eyes like a caress and I shivered underneath it. Harrison immediately looked back up at my face. “Too cold?”
I shook my head slowly, deciding to try to be as bold as I’d learned he was. “It’s not that.”
“Ah.” He moved closer to me then, big hands falling to my knees and spreading them. “Too horny. That works better for my plans than being too cold.”
He ran his fingers up my thighs, his eyes lowering to the most private part of me. “Do you have any idea how crazy it’s made me, thinking about you right here, just like this?”
Once again, I shook my head, unable to form words. His fingertips burned pathways into my skin, sliding higher with every pass he made over my thighs, but not going quite as far as I needed them to.
“God, the amount of times I’ve—” He cut himself off, lips quirking into one of those delicious, naughty grins as his eyes came up to mine. “Do you actually want the details?”
My voice got stuck somewhere inside, but I nodded, inching forward on the couch a bit to encourage those freaking hands to rise higher. Harrison glanced right at that most intimate part, finally bringing his fingers to my entrance before he lifted his gaze back to mine.
Casual as anything, he kept talking as he sat on his knees by my feet, his fingers sliding into me and bringing me to the brink of madness.
“I wanted you from the word go, Aurelia. You’re fucking stunning and so smart, and then I had you here, and it was so easy to talk to you, and the lights went out. The places my mind went.”
He let out a chuckle as his thumb brushed over my clit. An actual whimper escaped me as my hips started rocking. It felt like he was lulling me into some kind of turned-on trance between his voice and his fingers, and I couldn’t say I minded it at all.
“Come for me, baby. Make all those dirty fantasies come true. Then I’ll take you upstairs and make love to you, and we’ll fall asleep together. In our bed.”
Somewhere in the back of mind, I was aware of the fact that he’d said the L-word, but I was too far gone to care about semantics or context.
My eyes slid shut, my head dropping back against the couch.
The next thing I knew, that wicked mouth was on me, licking through my folds and doing all the things my own dirty fantasies had been centered around since that very first time he’d done this to me.
My orgasm started as a slow build, but he didn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry. His fingers slid into me, his tongue and teeth doing all kinds of unspeakable things until finally the dam broke and I came, grabbing his hair just for something to anchor me as pleasure splintered me apart.
In the aftermath, my eyes stayed closed, but I heard the low groan that came out of him. I felt him picking me up. One arm slid under my shoulders and the other under my knees, lifting me like I weighed nothing.
He cradled me against his chest. His still fully clothed chest, I realized belatedly, and he carried me up to his bedroom just like he’d promised. I only managed to open my eyes when he set me down, but I was surprised by the force of the need burning in his eyes when I looked at him again.
As he steadied me on my feet, I didn’t say a word but I finally got started on the buttons of his shirt.
I undid them one by one, then pushed the garment off his shoulders and lowered my hands to his waistband.
A quick glance at his feet told me he’d kicked off his shoes at some point, probably downstairs while I’d been blissed out, and it took me no time at all to lift his waistband and his underwear over his thick erection, lowering them until they fell easily to his feet.
He stepped out of them, arm extending toward me to pull me to him, but I held his gaze and shook my head, pushing him onto the bed by his shoulders instead.
He must have gone willingly because there was no way I’d pushed this guy hard enough to actually make him sit down, let alone lie down.
Harrison spread out on the mattress, his beautiful body stretching out as he watched me with dark, curious eyes.
“Condom?” I asked quietly, my voice cracking from disuse and all my panting downstairs.
He jerked his head to the nightstand. “Top drawer.”
I moved over to it, sliding the drawer open and immediately spotting the box nestled between knick-knacks, more watches, and a bottle of lube. Picking up the condom and the lube, I held the bottle up at him and cocked my head in question.
That wicked smirk spread across his lips again. “There was a lot of fantasizing. I already told you that. Lubrication is key.”
It really dawned on me in that moment exactly what he’d meant downstairs and my eyes widened, even as my body hummed back to life. “You mean you’ve…”
“Too many times to count.” He watched as I crawled onto the mattress on my knees, tore open the condom, and rolled it on. A low moan slid out of him and he dropped his head back on the bed. “You’ve got to know it’s bad when even that feels too good.”
“Has the reality been better than the daydreams?” I asked, straddling him and doing my best to look like I actually knew what I was doing as I lined him up with my entrance. “I mean…”
Harrison sat up again, that broad chest heaving. He tangled his fingers into my hair and pulled me closer, lips moving against mine before he claimed them. “The reality has been everything.”
I sank down on him as he kissed me, wondering why everything he said and did always seemed to be exactly right.
After another spectacular orgasm and fully getting to see his face when he came, he pulled me into his arms and tucked me against him.
I fell asleep to the sound of his heartbeat evening out under my ear.
I woke up the next morning to him rolling over to face me, propping himself up on his elbow and his handsome face resting in his open palm. “Let’s get married on my family’s estate.”
“What?” I blinked hard, wondering for a moment if I was still dreaming. There was a smile in his lazy, sleepy eyes though, his fingers drawing circles on my hip. “What are you talking about?”
“Let’s host our own surprise wedding on Christmas Eve at the estate,” he repeated. “I’m going to be honest here. We don’t have time to plan anything in New York, and since I haven’t responded to anyone who’s come back to me about a venue with everything else going on, it’s too late now.”
I looked into his eyes and realized I would marry him anytime, anywhere. Somewhere along the line, the man had become my best friend, my confidant, my partner in business—and crime—and I wanted to add husband to that list.
“Okay,” I agreed, then rolled onto my back and dropped my forearm over my eyes. “But if you seriously want to plan a whole surprise wedding ourselves in just a few days, then you’d better go make me some coffee. We’re not going to get anywhere without adding a whole lot of caffeine to the mix.”